U.S. Bitcoin Miners Struggle as MARA Faces Production Decline
It’s not just Bitcoin’s price that’s taking a hit—Bitcoin mining companies in the U.S. are feeling the pressure as well.
In February alone, the combined market capitalization of 14 major U.S. public miners dropped by 22%, or $6 billion, according to analysts at JP Morgan in their latest crypto report.
Among the companies tracked by the top investment bank are Core Scientific, Greenidge, and MARA Holdings.
The report also highlighted a dip in revenue for these companies, with analysts estimating that Bitcoin miners earned an average of $54,300 per EH/s in daily block reward revenue in February, a 5% decrease compared to January.
Bitcoin’s price has fallen by 10% in the last 30 days, currently trading at $87,600, according to CoinGecko data. The asset dropped as low as $78,940 on Friday, as investors adopted a “risk-off” stance amid escalating trade tensions caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Bitcoin is now nearly 20% below its all-time high of over $108,000 from January, a peak that was reached the day crypto-friendly President Trump took office on November 5.
The price performance of Bitcoin had previously helped boost revenue growth for miners, including MARA Holdings, in the fourth quarter of last year. However, with the current decline in price, the pressure on mining operations is mounting.
MARA Holdings, one of the key players in the mining sector, reported that its blocks won and Bitcoin production—two key metrics of mining productivity—fell 6% month-over-month in February. The company attributed this decline to increased network difficulty and three fewer operational days in February compared to the previous month.
Shares of MARA closed at $13.94, marking a 1.3% increase despite spending much of the day in negative territory. However, the company is down nearly 21% over the past month, in line with a 10% drop in Bitcoin’s price and the broader crypto market.
In its fourth-quarter earnings report, the Florida-based firm revealed that it had produced about 27%, or 998, fewer blocks during the last financial quarter compared to the same period a year earlier. This drop occurred despite beating analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings per share during a period when Bitcoin was still rising.
Mining operations, which require substantial electricity, become more costly to maintain when Bitcoin prices drop, putting a strain on operations. Investors also expected Bitcoin’s price to keep rising, with hopes that a “Trump trade” would fuel sentiment and drive other digital assets to new heights earlier in the year.
However, a trade war with major economies, including China, has led investors to pull back from risk assets, including Bitcoin and equities. Additionally, Bitcoin miners with significant exposure to high-performance computing have been affected by the launch of Deepseek, a Chinese AI model in late January, as noted by JPMorgan.
To adapt, some Bitcoin miners have repurposed their data centers to support the AI industry, hoping to capitalize on the growing demand for AI development.
Nevertheless, the sector faced challenges in January when the Chinese startup launched its large language model, developed with far less capital than U.S. firms like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google, which has weighed on Bitcoin miners looking to diversify into AI.
